Thursday, January 12, 2012

Garbage/Trash Bag Art Part 2

I titled the posts on this art as garbage/trash bag art, since both refer to the same product, but these bags for disposing trash also go by the name of bin bag, bin or can liner, swag, refuse, and black sack.

When you think about it, it is quite odd that they would be referred to as black sack and not green sack, because the first plastic garbage bags, which were invented in 1950 by Harry Wasylyk and Larry Hansen, were green.

These Canadian inventors came up with a disposable green garbage bag made from polyethylene. In those days, garbage bags were initially intended for commercial use and were first sold to a hospital in Winnipeg, Canada.

Garbage bags were introduced to the public by Union Carbide in the late 1960s and came on the market under the name Glad Garbage bags. This company had bought the invention from Harry Wasylyk and Larry Hansen. The latter was an employee of the Union Carbide Company in Ontario.

It would still take about 25 years before trash bags with drawstrings were introduced. Glad was the first to offer them in 1984, followed by Hefty in 2001 with a garbage bag that had a drawstring flexible enough to stretch around the garbage can's rim and hold it in place.

The latest invention came in July of 2004 by Glad with the ForceFlex trash bag; a flexible plastic garbage bag. The competitor followed quickly in September of that same year with the Ultra Flex bag.

These tidbits of information are interesting, but you don't have to remember them. You can dump them in the recycle bin of your mind. Just don't forget to line it with a garbage/trash bag!